Increasingly, consumers have come to rely on debit, credit, and stored value cards as a preferred vehicle to provide payment for transactions. Credit cards provide ready access to funds, offer financial protection superior to cash or checks, support loyalty programs, and allow consumers to take advantage of purchasing opportunities when funds may not be otherwise available. As debit and stored value cards have become increasingly popular, the need for consumers to carry cash or checkbooks is still further reduced.
Within the past few years, card associations and issuers have been providing transaction cards that are enhanced with features beyond the typical embossed account number, expiration date, cardholder name, and signature area. “Smart cards,” for example, have now come into popular use, and allow for enhanced security of both debit and credit cards by use of onboard integrated circuits to provide memory and optional microprocessor functionality. Smart cards and other enhanced or memory cards or tokens have found uses from replacements for simple embossed credit/debit cards, toll booth payment, ATM card replacements, and even Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards in cellular handsets.
Even though smart cards and electronics-enhanced cards have provided improvements over traditional credit cards, they suffer from a number of deficiencies. For example, electronics circuitry on enhanced financial transaction cards must receive externally-provided power to operate. To obtain power from a merchant's financial or Point-Of-Service (POS) terminal, contact-type smart cards use a physical connector interface; two of such interfaces are defined ISO standards 7810 and 7816. However, many types of cards not in physical contact with a POS terminal or other power source cannot operate, and therefore these cards are necessarily inactive at all other times. Alternatively, some enhanced financial transaction cards obtain power from a terminal-generated RF electromagnetic field by way of an inductor that is part of the card's circuitry. For example, ISO 14443 defines a popular contactless financial transaction card protocol. However, current contactless cards must be in close proximity to the properly modulated electromagnetic field in order to operate (10 cm in the case of ISO 14443-compliant cards). Due to the intentionally limited power and range of such short range fields, RF-powered cards cannot operate outside of the immediate area of a merchant's POS terminal, and may not have sufficient power in some cases to provide sophisticated electronic computations or support more power consuming circuitry such as displays. Further, embedded chips of some contactless smart cards often employ cryptographic security algorithms that can be “cracked” or decoded if the time and electrical current required for certain encryption or decryption operations is measured. Several demonstrations of this mode of account compromise have been documented, and thus, the possibility of surreptitious measurement of such parameters without knowledge of the cardholder (although they not represent a security risk to the payment system) presents a significant security risk at the individual card level.
What is needed then is a financial transaction card or token that provides an onboard power source. What is further needed is a financial transaction card or token that has an onboard power source that does not utilize the hazardous chemicals associated with typical power sources such as replaceable or rechargeable batteries. What is also needed is a financial transaction card or token that has a power source that is rechargeable and has a form factor that may be used with common credit card form factors. What is further needed is a financial transaction token with electronic circuitry that can operate in an environment significantly removed from a POS terminal. What is also needed is a financial transaction token that utilizes an onboard power source to provide cryptographic security and protect the token when not in use. What is still further needed is a financial transaction token that may reprogram itself using an onboard power source to encode a variety of types of account information, thereby allowing for payment flexibility of the financial transaction token. What is also needed is a financial transaction token that allows the holder to view information stored in the token without being in proximity to a POS terminal. What is further needed is a financial transaction token that provides for a backup power source to preserve function or memory status when a primary onboard power source has been discharged. What is also needed is a financial transaction token that automatically senses the presence of an external power source, and switches between the internal power source and external power source as the external power becomes available or unavailable.